4 ms·
nitpick: virii is wrong. The latin plural of 'virus' does not exist. It is a nebulous, uncountable concept to ancient rome. Like 'malaise' or 'ocean' (we can p
by rzwitserloot 6y ago
nitpick: virii is wrong.
The latin plural of 'virus' does not exist. It is a nebulous, uncountable concept to ancient rome. Like 'malaise' or 'ocean' (we can pluralize oceans in english, but hopefully you can imagine that a language would treat it as a concept for which the concept of pluralization doesn't make sense).
You'd think: Hey, it's `-us`, I know that one, it pluralizes to `-i`, but, no. There is no plural. It's a rare form that also ends in -us but doesn't work like most of the words you know derived from latin that end in -us.
But there is `vir`, latin for 'man', and the plural of that is viri.
So, 'viri', as in 'the latin pluralized form of virus', is dead wrong.
There is no -ii ending in latin. At all.
The plural of 'virus' in english is 'viruses'. Any other form is stupid. Sometimes language does that, but surely you'd agree that something like 'irregardless', whilst somewhat common, sounds very unprofessional. virii is the same way.
- thereisnospork 6y ago> There is no -ii ending in latin. At all. Triarii? (My knowledge of latin as a language comes primarily from Rome Total War).
- newacct583 6y agoNow that is an HN comment.
- admash 6y ago> There is no -ii ending in latin. At all. Should you mean no -ii ending to "virus" at all, it would appear to be a reasonable assertion. However if by "at all", you mean of any word in Latin, that is demonstrably false. http://latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:filius http://latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:filius Nominative and vocative plural: filii Usage example: "... et nihilo minus amicum gravem virum aut fidelem libertum lateri filii sui adiungere, ..." https://thelatinlibrary.com/quintilian/quintilian.institutio1.shtml https://thelatinlibrary.com/quintilian/quintilian.institutio...
- ink_13 6y agoI'll bet you 10 denarii you're wrong about suffixes.
- anonymfus 6y agoBut that comment was written in English, not Latin, and such irregular pluralisation is better to be treated as a feature of the modern English. People generally do this not because they someway learned Latin incorrectly but because they noticed how other English speakers pluralise Latin looking words, and that is exactly how new grammar rules are adopted. Also by referring to ancient Rome you treat Latin as some sort of a fixed, dead language, but English speakers do that irregular pluralisation to words borrowed from the modern languages descented from Latin too (see cappuccini), and so for example in Romanian plural of virus is virusuri, and in Neo-Latin it's vira. Personally I want to prefer virusuri just because it's the funniest one.